Guide for using the Managing International Labour Standards Reporting website and tools

Guide for using the

Managing International

Labour Standards Reporting

website and tools

The International Labour Standards Department of the ILO [NORMES] and the International Training Centre of the ILO [ITCILO] offer a new product for ILO constituents involved in International Labour Standards [ILS] reporting. The product comes in the form of a website with examples, tools and resources, and an approach to “manage” ILS reporting obligations. This product is described and explained in this Guide.

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Table of contents

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1. Introduction

The International Labour Organization [ILO] sets and supervises ILS. Its members have different reporting obligations vis-à-vis ILS, including that of periodically reporting on the application of Conventions that have been ratified.1 The Secretariat of the Organization – the International Labour Office [Office] – is mandated to support ILO member States in these efforts by offering information and technical assistance. As a result, the Office provides a variety of supports to member States tailored to address the different challenges they face in meeting the ILS-related obligations.

Each year, the Office requests more than 2,000 reports from member States about the steps taken to implement ratified Conventions. The ILO, acting through a committee of experts as well as a tripartite committee bringing together employers', workers' and government representatives, supervises ILS application on the basis of these reports. Although governments generally are successful in meeting their reporting obligations, sometimes they are not. Experience shows that governments are sometimes challenged by systematic weaknesses that prevent their fulfilling their obligations or by an insufficient knowledge of the supervisory mechanisms and how they works.

In 2013 a new methodology has been added to the Office's offerings to help governments manage their ILS reporting obligations. It is based on a management systems approach to the work of putting together elements required for reporting and delivering the ILS reports requested, on time and with informative and responsive content. It complements current approaches to capacity building and development that are designed to improve knowledge and skills of ILS reporting.

This Guide describes what a management systems approach is and how it complements existing support offerings from the Office and the ITC-ILO.

2. The approach

Management is the activity of getting things done with the aid of people and other resources. To be able to produce informative, responsive and timely reports, the responsible government officials need to bring together – manage – information, human resources, time, materials, and sometimes financial resources.

A systems approach to management means the study of an enterprise – like a government bureau charged with reporting on ILS – in its totality so that the human and material resources of that enterprise can be organized to realize its overall objectives – like ILS reporting – as efficiently as possible.

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For details, see ILO: Rules of the game : a brief introduction to international labour standards,

2009, Geneva; and ILO: Handbook of procedures relating to international labour Conventions and Recommendations,2012, Geneva.

4 Sustainably resolving challenges to doing this requires seeing the preparation and delivery of

reports as an exercise in managing these human and other resources. It also requires building and developing the skills of the persons involved to be able to identify and correct weaknesses in that management. Doing this ultimately improves their ability to manage resources in order to meet the reporting goal. Continuous improvement becomes possible.

Working to instil a management approach to reporting can help those involved to reflect on and identify weaknesses, take measures to correct them and, in the end, permanently resolve the challenges faced by a national administration in providing informative and responsive reports to the Office on time.

Managing ILS reporting obligations is about getting informative and responsive reports written and delivered to the Office on time by drawing on skilled and knowledgeable human resources and other resources.

A systems approach to managing ILS reporting means looking beyond the idea of “getting the reports for this year” to thinking about how reports are being prepared and what can be done to improve that process with a view to the objective of using available resources efficiently to get informative and responsive reports in to the Office on time. The cycle reflected below in Figure 1 captures that essence.

Figure 1: System cycle

 Plan what needs to be done to meet the ILS reporting objective.

 Do what is planned.

 Check to see that what was planned was done and actually met the objective and that it was done in the most efficient manner possible.

 Act to improve the process, with a view to planning, doing, checking and acting again to improve the process.

3. The product

A set of resources and tools for ILO constituents to use with a view to instilling a management systems approach to ILS reporting has been created.

Plan

Do Check Act

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3.1

Website

The Managing ILS Reporting [MILSR] website appears at:

http://managing–ILS-reporting.ilo.org. The site serves as a two-way communication channel by both collecting and disseminating good ideas, experience, and examples, and providing management systems tools for supporting ILO constituents.

The website is designed to be used on an ad hoc basis according to the needs of the ILO

constituents. It proposes an approach to resolving challenges to ILS reporting; it is not a training course.

The website can be seen as a “toolbox” divided into 4 compartments.

Practices coming from ILO constituents are presented in a compartment bearing that name. Two methods are used to display the collection of practices: by country and by subject. The subject method presents good examples in 4 groupings: human resources, contacts with other ministries and agencies, management, communications and consultations with social partners and other non-governmental actors. In addition, there is a collection point in this area of the website where ILO constituents can bring good examples to the attention of the website managers for possible inclusion in it.

Tools is the second compartment. Interactive checklists, downloadable documents, and other tools are placed in this area for ILO constituent use in improving ILS reporting thanks to a management systems approach.

Helpdesk is the third compartment, where ILO constituents can address specific questions on ILS reporting to the Office. A collection of questions of general interest with answers can also be found here. •Good ideas •Good experiences •Good examples ILO constituents contribute •Organization of constituents' good examples •Collection of system management approach tools

Managing ILS Reporting Website

Collects and disseminates •Improved ILS reporting

practices

•Improved ILS reporting performance

•Improved ILS application

ILO constituents draw on and benefit from

6 Resources is the final compartment, containing a glossary giving definitions of reporting-related terms and jargon, as well as key ILO documents, publications and links relevant to ILS

reporting.

3.2

Tools

The tools on the website have several forms and orientations. Forms include interactive checklist web pages and downloadable checklist documents. Orientations include both traditional

knowledge transferring tools – such as the calendar of action on ILS – as well as tools for

supporting a management systems approach to ILS reporting. Most of the tools are new and have been specifically developed for this website.

Checklists

Entire year checklist for article 22 reporting (national administrations). This is a “to do” and “to know” checklist organized by months during a reporting year (January to December). The intention is that it be used by the public administration personnel to check that reporting related tasks are prepared and accomplished within the proper time framework during the reporting calendar year to assure that reports are ultimately sent in on time.

Entire year checklist for article 22 reporting (social partners). This is a “to do” and “to know” checklist organized by months during a reporting year (January to December). The intention is that it be used by representatives of the social partners to participate in the reporting process in a timely and efficient way.

Knowledge transfer resources

Procedure for article 22 reporting (detailed and simplified reports). A document on different steps to be taken according to the type of reports to be prepared, i.e. simplified or detailed.

Commentary on article 22 report forms. A document that gives explanatory comments on standard elements of article 22 report forms approved by the Governing Body for each Convention.

Calendar of action on international labour standards. A generic calendar of action called for by national administrations on international labour standards.2

Management systems tools

Root cause analysis: the fishbone diagramme. A document, adapted from a World Bank Evaluation Group tool, that explains to national administrations the fishbone analysis to identify the causes of a problem.

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7 Identification of obstacles, solutions and indicators of progress: the Plan, Do, Check, Act process. A tool that briefly describes the Plan-Do-Check-Act model to national administrations and includes three indicative checklists: a checklist of possible obstacles, a checklist of possible solutions, and a checklist of indicators of progress. The document is modelled on the organization used in the MILSR website.

3.3

Idea and experience exchange

The reporting practices collected in the MILSR website are offered in the spirit of sharing ways of approaching reporting challenges that can be quite common between different countries. The examples are offered as potentially useful, good ideas of what could be taken up and done by other users elsewhere. There are videos as well as short descriptive examples, all associated with an individual country and one, or more, of the 4 broad categories of human resources, contacts with other ministries and agencies, management, communications and consultations with social partners and other non-governmental actors. All these examples can be used in interventions as well as on an ad hoc basis by ILO constituents to prompt discussion of potential local solutions to similar challenges dealt with elsewhere.